Elderly man sues national broadcaster NHK for excessive use of English ‘loan words’

A 71 year old man from Gifu Prefecture has filed a lawsuit against Japanese national broadcaster NHK for mental distress due to their excessive use of foreign words that have been adapted to the Japanese language, or “loan words“. The case has been filed in the Nagoya District Court and the plaintiff is seeking 1.4 million yen (approx. 14,300 US dollars) for “unnecessary emotional distress.”

Takahashi claims that the broadcaster doesn’t take the elderly citizens into consideration when they use words like risuku (“risk”), toraburu (“trouble”), shisutemu (“system”), kea (“care”), and conshieruju (“concierge”); basically English words in Japanese pronunciation. He says that this “deluge” of words is stressing him out emotionally, and adds that it is irresponsible of the broadcaster to not use the proper native Japanese equivalents of the terms.

The elderly man is a member of a little known organization called Nihongo wo taisetsu ni suru kai, which when translated means “group that appreciates the Japanese language.” However, his lead attorney Mutsuo Miyata admits that Takahashi may be the only recognized member, and that the “group” isn’t that serious with its activities. Takahashi said that he tried contacting NHK with a few inquiries, but when he received no response, he decided to “take this to court.” He wants the NHK to remember that they are a national broadcaster that has a responsibility to maintain “neutral” programming. A spokesman for the NHK said that they still have to verify the content of the complaint so they have no statement at this time.

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PandaWatch

Old Japanese complains when too much English is spoken on TV. Young Japanese gets yelled at for not doing well enough in English studies at school. Ironic?

ChuckRamone

Some people have a very low threshold for emotional distress. They experience something new and have so much cognitive dissonance that their brains shut down and fear and anger take over. This happens especially to close-minded old people.

Seprényi Gábor

Old prank should stop watching NHK. What a stupid lawsuit!
He must have too much free time on his hands.

Tokyo5

I agree with this old man. I live in Tokyo and katakanized English is not just stupid, rampant, and difficult for old people, but it’s also extremely difficult for anyone who speaks Japanese as a second language or even English, because it doesn’t sound anything like the English word it represents. To an English speaker it sounds like gibberish. Even if you can also speak Japanese it’s no good, because it doesn’t sound like Japanese either. In almost every case, there is a perfectly good Japanese word for the English loan word, but the English loan word is used because it sounds more modern and cool. It has gotten to the point that at least 10% of Modern Japanese is English loan words that are not recognizable as English, nor taught as Japanese. Only young “modern” Japanese can understand it.

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